Steve Lieber

From Daily Planet Staff Reports

The threat of nuclear annihilation in a war started by Iran, Israel and others in the Middle East has escalated to alarming levels, a Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum chief told a standing-room-only turnout of about 120 people last Wednesday night at UNC Asheville’s Laurel Forum in Karpen Hall.

Steve Lieber, the non-Japanese director of the museum, expressed his concerns about possible Armageddon during an opening presentation for an art exhibit, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Images and Stories From Eyewitness Accounts.”

“We are starting to be at the point where the human race is either going to get rid of nuclear weapons, or let everyone have one,” he said. “We’re heading toward everyone having nuclear weapons and, with that, someone will use them.”

Lieber provided an introduction and summation for a lecture and slide presentation featuring Miyoko Watanabe, a Japanese survivor of the atomic-bomb assault.

Following an hour-long presentation, Watanabe and Lieber fielded questions from the audience for 20 minutes.
The art exhibit will continue in the lobby of Karpen Hall through Aug. 8. A related event including a screening of “White Light/Black Rain,” directed by Steven Okazaki, and peace vigil is scheduled at 7 p.m. Aug. 6 at Laurel Forum.

A peace delegation from Hiroshima attended the session, which was sponsored by UNCA’s Center for Diversity Education.

Lieber opened the program by noting that “it is extremely odd for a non-Japanese to be in charge of something like this,” but that his appointment largely was the result of the success of his involvement with the international Mayors for Peace program.

He explained that the exhibit and talk were “all part of Hiroshima’s sense of crisis,” triggered by the current threat of nuclear war in the Middle East.

“We are extremely worried about the way things are going” with nuclear-weapons proliferation, Lieber said. “It’s going far away from the peace culture ... We are hoping to graduate from the war culture to the peace culture ... We are going away from the nuclear nonproliferation agreement.”

In his assessment, the United States, under President Bill Clinton’s administration in 2000, agreed to shift away from nuclear weapons, while under President George Bush’s administration in 2005, the U.S. said only that other countries should get away from possessing nuclear weapons.

The Arab League stated a few months ago that if Israel ever officially acknowledges it has nuclear weapon, then Arab countries will walk away from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Lieber noted.

Economies around the world are being “destroyed” by military buildups involving nuclear bombs, Lieber asserted.

He castigated many Western societies for compounding economic problems by using more than their fair share of the world’s resources. For instance, Lieber said the U.S. ranks as the fourth most populous country, but uses 20 percent of its resources. “We’re going to have to learn to share,” he said. “We can choose the paradigm of deciding by violence or peaceful means.”

As for the Hiroshima group visiting UNCA, he listed the following key points:

• “Right now, we need to demand everyone get rid of nuclear weapons — the United States must get rid of them, too.”
• As for other crises, “It’s a question of whether we solve problems by violence or peaceful means.”

Lieber then noted that “social movements arise from pain — the pain people suffer drives these movements.” As examples, he cited India, led by Mahatma Gandhi, winning freedom from Great Britain, and African-Americans achieving equality from white U.S. society.

In his efforts, Lieber noted an irony — “People who want to work for peace don’t like to fight — that’s a problem.”

To put the situation in context, he said the peace movement must succeed because “we believe we’re possibly facing a paroxysm of violence that will make World War II look like a picnic.”

Regarding Watanabe’s talk and the peace group’s appearances at UNCA and other locales around the world, Lieber stressed, “We are absolutely not here to complain about what happened 60 years ago. That is not the issue.

“We’re only here to warn you about the future, which will be this (nuclear Armageddon that dwarfs what happened in Japan) if we don’t change things.”